Texas County Memorial Hospital in Houston, Mo., is focusing on reducing patient medication errors, according to a Houston Herald report.
"A significant portion of our patient demographic uses multiple medications," said Wes Murray, CEO of Texas County Memorial Hospital.
The 66-bed hospital often sees patients who arrive at the emergency department with bags of medications or medication lists that are incomplete or wrong, Mr. Murray said.
The Texas County Memorial Hospital medical staff expressed concern about medication errors due to electronic charting methods. Doretta Todd-Willis, chief nursing officer at TCMH, gathered a team of nurse managers, physicians and IT staff to correct EHR-related issues.
Ms. Todd-Willis said staff has already seen changes in how they process the medications patients bring to the hospital. Staff remove old medication lists from the patient's electronic record and create new medication lists upon each visit a patient makes to the hospital.
"There are countless ways that medication errors can occur, and we are focusing on this issue so that nothing serious occurs," Mr. Murray said.